Currently, various packaging and shipping methods are used to transport containers, such as bottles, from one location to another. Such transportation methods typically involve transporting bottles from a source, such as a manufacturer, to a destination, such as a distributor. Such methods include palletizing layers of vertically orientated bottles upon one another to form a shipping package, wherein the shipping package contains a predetermined number of bottles. Subsequently, the stacked layers of bottles are wrapped or otherwise secured to ensure that they withstand the harshness associated with shipping.
Due to inventory and cost, it is critical that the number of bottles shipped in each container is known and consistent. As such, feeding mechanisms have been devised which ensure that the shipping package contains a predetermined number of bottles. Such mechanisms typically have a conveyor on which a preselected number of bottles are loaded. The bottles are then transported along the conveyor and loaded onto a pallet.
One current method of palletizing bottles is to feed them in from the single lane conveyance onto a four foot wide accumulation conveyor by use of a slow down module. The slow down module has several belts moving at progressively slower speeds, and as the belts get slower the distance between the guides gets wider. A single lane of bottles is fed along the slowdown module. In this way, the single lane line of bottles is changed to a stream of either two wide or three wide. The stream of either two wide or three wide bottles then move down the wider portion of accumulator until they hit the back of a previously accumulated pack. When this happens, the stream spreads out over the entire width of the belt to the edges of the accumulator and are patterned. Once the bottles are patterned, a set of pins comes down and cuts off a layer and sweeps it onto the pallet.
While this method does palletize bottles, it has several drawbacks. Specifically, as the bottles are flowing to the sides of the accumulator, they can either fall over, miss a spot (void), or jumble up such that they are out of pattern. When the pins lower to cut off a layer, then instead of going in-between the bottles, they come down on one and crush it. As such, with this random feed system, an operator is required full time to watch the pattern, fill voids, and make corrections as required.
A second method of palletizing blow molded bottles is to separate the one single lane as described above into six single lanes with one, one-to-two, and two, one-to-three automatic divert gates. The six lanes are then placed on table top conveyance where they are run through a bottle counter. Once the proper number of bottles are counted, a bottle stop closed and the six lanes of bottles are run into the sweep mechanism. The six lanes of bottles are swept at 90 degrees from their entrance direction onto a belt conveyance which takes the bottles to a stop. The sweep mechanism sweeps as many times as it takes to form a complete layer. Once the layer is formed, then it is moved forward and stacked on the pallet. This method also has some drawbacks. Specifically, the bottles are unstable in the sweep mechanism and can tip over during the sweeping process. As a result, the machine is limited speed wise and even at low speed the sweep mechanism is unreliable enough such that an operator needs to be in the area. In addition, the entrance of high speed blow molders into the bottling market are too fast for this concept, thereby requiring multiple palletizing machines to be used. The present invention was developed in light of these and other disadvantages.